This list
is rather harsh taking just the best units from the eldar codex, so
it could be a rather big issue for me. I need the zombies to hold a
knight up for ages and maybe take out a lynx in combat. Its going to
be a hard fight.

The
Mission

For the
mission we were given Contact Lost with dawn of war deployment. So
grabbing objectives is very important, luckily I have the bodies to
do it.

Eldar win
the roll to deploy first and select to. The wraithknights set up in
the centre with the bikes supporting them. Dark reapers set up in the
building with the objective and the lynx deploys on the right and the
crimson hunter starts in reserve.

I deploy
my battle tanks on the far left as it will have range on everything.
The medusa and zombies deploy in the centre with the plaguebearers
on their left. On the right the infantry all set up with the command
squad at the back. On the far right the chimera and demolisher
deploy. I keep both of the soul grinders in reserve and infiltrate
the nurglings. I infiltrate the nurglings onto an objective on the
left.

Night
Fight: turn 1

Steal the
initiative: No

For this
table the special rule is you draw an extra objective card each turn,
not every exiting, but there you go.

The
Battle

Eldar
turn 1

Both of
the knights jump forwards, the sword knight goes on the right while
the other stays in the centre. The bikes move about a little.

Psychic
phase and the farseer casts fortune on the middle wraithknight which
I fail to stop. He perils though and the farseer takes a wound.

Bikes on
the left target the nurglings but they go to ground and take no
wounds. In the centre the bikes take a single wound off the medusa .
On the right the wraithknight runs and the other target a battle tank
and takes a single hull point off it and shakes it. However the lynx
then wrecks it with its pulsar. On the right the bikes wreck a
chimera. The dark reapers shoot at the plaguebearers but they don't
do any damage.

Assault
phase and the bikes jump back into cover and hide.

Score:
Harness the warp, take no prisoners, first blood

Eldar: 3
– Renegades: 0

Renegades
turn 1

I move up
with every one as I need to get in combat to stand and chance this
game. The commander leaves his unit and joins up with the zombies as
they will be a better bodyguard.

With the
farseer hidden I try to take him out with the medusa, it locks on but
he looks out and a bike dies. The battle tank targets the lynx but
the holo field stops the shot. Shooting from the chimera and
demolisher target the lynx as well but do no damage.

Infantry
attempt to charge into the closest wraithknight but they fail the
charge.

Score:
Objective 2, objective 1

Eldar: 3
– Renegades: 2

Eldar 2

In from
reserve the crimson hunter comes in and goes for the battle tank.
Again the bikes move around and the wraithknights move back.

Again the
farseer casts fortune but this time on the farseer on his unit and
guides the heavy wraith cannon wraithknight.

Swooping
in to attack, the crimson hunter shoots at the battle tank but it
only does a single hull point of damage. Bikes all shoot at the
plaguebearers and 3 die. Even with guide the wraithknight only this
with a single hull point, meaning the lynx diverts its fire power to
finishes it off. Using their starshots, the dark reapers bring down
the medusa but the crew survive.

Again the
bikes move back into cover.

Score:
Recon

Eldar: 4
– Renegades: 2

Renegades
turn 2

Gotta
keep on moving forwards as he out ranged me now I have lost all my
long range guns. Nothing comes in from reserve.

A few
lasgun shots are in range of the bikes on the right and I bring down
2 of them. The rest of my force does nothing. The demolisher tries to
damage the lynx but again the holo field stops the shot.

Score:
objective 2, objective 5

Eldar: 4
– Renegades: 4

Eldar
turn 3

Realising
that I am getting to close he moves the wraithknights back and the
bikes scatter around the table. The crimson hunter turns around and
goes after the demolisher.

Again he
cats fortune on the farseer and attempts to doom the plaguebearers
but it manage to stop it.

Both the
wraithknight and crimson hunter shoot at the demolisher and they both
just take a single hull point off the tank, and immobilise it. The
bikes and lynx shoot at the plaguebearers and kill off most of them,
leaving just the herald and 4 daemons.

Score:
Nothing

Eldar: 4
– Renegades: 4

Renegades
turn 3

Again all
move forwards and I should be in charge range. Attempting to stop the
lynx this turn a soul grinder comes in next to it. The second soul
grinder comes in but scatters off and mishaps, going in to ongoing
reserve. The artillery crew go and grab an objective.

The
herald of nurgle attempts to smite the dark reapers but he fails to
cast it.

Shooting
begins with the soul grinder targeting the lynx and he takes off 2
hull points, 1 with phlegm and 1 from the harvester cannon. Chimera
fire takes a third point off it. The demolisher is unable to do any
damage.

Score:
Supremacy (3), objective 5, objective 1

Eldar: 4
– Renegades: 9

Eldar
turn 4

Again his
bikes move about to get a few shots in while the wraithknights go
after the soul grinder. Carrying on its course, the crimson hunter
goes for the rear of the chimera.

Delving
into the warp the farseer casts both guide and fortune on the
wraithcannon wraithknight. Shooting into its rear the crimson hunter explodes the tank.

Finishing
what they started, the bikes kill off the daemons. Using their
startshots, the dark reapers glance the demolisher and wreck it. The
wraithknight takes 2 hull points off the soul grinder. A little
excessive but the lynx targets the zombies and kills off 10 of them.

Both
wraithknights charge into the soul grinder and wreck it with ease.

Once
again the soul grinder mishaps and goes back into ongoing reserve.
The infantry move closer to the lynx.

I don't
have much to do so I fail to do any damage as the chimera fails to
hit the lynx.

Charging
and the infantry roll a double 1 and fails to charge the lynx.

Score:
Recon, objective 2, objective 3

Eldar: 11
– Renegades: 12

Eldar
turn 5

The bikes
go after the zombies while the wraithknights spread out.

Shooting
from the dark reapers finishes off the zombies and the wraithknight
kills the warlord. Shooting from the lynx kills the command squad.

Score:
King slayer (1), slay the warlord, objective 4

Eldar: 14
– Renegades: 12

Renegades
turn 5

Finally
the soul grinder finds its way into the mortal realm, son of a bitch
was probably getting drunk with papa nurgle or something... I was
some one irritated. He appears on the left next to the farseer.

Phlegm
and harvester cannon targets the farseer but it fails to do any
damage.

Infantry
charge into the lynx and krack grenade it and wreck it, the explosion
scatters off the table keeping the infantry alive.

Score:
Objective 3, 5 and 2, take no prisoners

Eldar: 14
– Renegades: 16

I pray to
the chaos gods that the game ends here as I have very little left on
the table... it carries on.

Eldar
turn 6

Realising
he is behind on points the bikes spread out and go for objectives.
The sword wraithknight goes after the infantry which just attacked
the lynx. The other knight goes after the soul grinder.

Shooting
from the heavy wraith cannons explodes the soul grinder. Scatter
laser fire tries to take down the nurglings, but they only kill a
single base.

Sword
wriathknight charge the infantry and kills most of them, and stomp on
the rest. The bikes charge the nurglings, and kill a biker while
taking 2 wounds, they hold though.

Score:
objective 5, objective 5, ascendency (3)

Eldar: 20
– Renegades: 16

Renegades
turn 6

I do
absolutely nothing to his force.

Score:
Nothing

We roll
to see what happens...

Eldar
turn 7

They kill
the nurglings and practically all of the infantry.

Score:
objective 4, 5, 2, 2, supremacy (1) and hold the line

Eldar: 26
– Renegades: 17

Renegades
turn 7

Again I
do nothing.

End of
game.

Eldar: 27
– Renegades: 17

Post-Battle

If only
the game ended turn 5 and I would have won, but that's now it goes.
Looking at his list I was worried about the sheer fire power he could
put out. My force had a lot of infantry so I used that to take the
objectives and pray I could just hold out.

I am not
sure how to play that game any differently if I was to do it again.
My list just doesn't have the tools to deal with 2 wraithknights. The
infantry could deal with the lynx and the bikes could be taken down
over the course of the game.

Well that
was the end of the event, it was a great weekend with some good games
and over all I won 2 games, lost 2 games and drew 1. So a very
average score. But I enjoyed the weekend so what does it matter?

The way
the event works is that once all the games are over, we all had to
say which opponent was the most enjoyable game to play against. Then
from that they ranked up first by how many of those votes we got,
then from the number of victory points we got in the games. Each
person was divided into one of 4 groups, Chaos, Xenos, Space marines
and Imperium and then they awarded the highest scoring person of each
group a Best of Award. So over all the Imperium won the whole event,
and I won the Best chaos which was a surprise. Over all using this
odd way of ranking every one I came second out of the 40 something
people who attended.

19 comments:

Hey Malduran, once again thanks for the entertaining batrep! To be honest when I saw the Eldar list I thought it would be a massacre, but you managed to hang in there really well! I'm not sure why they even allowed unbound lists, at leasty they should match up unbound with unbound.

Your average win/loss ratio is a tstament to your skill as in my opinion, your list isn't exceptionally strong (not to be taken as a sligh, I know you have limited models and such).

Again, good job and grats on best Chaos and 2nd overall!

PS: Not sure if you saw them but I posted 2 batreps (my first 2 games) recently over at Dakka (nickname blackcadian) with my Renegades. Maybe you wanna check them out.

So cool, thank you for checking out my reports! We Renegades have to stick together right! I'm also interested how my list will evolvr - there's so many interesting ways to go with Renegades, I love it!

Interesting back and forth with the score, but that's Maelstrom for you. Indeed if it had have ended turn 5 you would have won and you were unlucky with that second Soul Grinder having no impact on the game, due to reserves, mishaps and just plain shooty blindness. I don't think there's any shame in this result, your opponent would have plenty of egg on their face if it had only been 5 turns considereing what they did in the subsequent 2.

Given your placing though it sounds like you did alright anyway, just surprised there were only 40+ people, did the event look undersubscribed or is that now the size of these things now. The first Thrones I went to had over 120 people I think, it'd be good to know if these are on the wane, downscaled because they've focused on more shops and galleries or still well subscribed, despite fewer places.

Its odd, it felt like a good number of people, but there where a fair few tables around us not being used, or being used by people just walking in to play at warhammer world. I think they had another event a month before which had over 100 people so i'm not sure what to say. It might have just been because it was a themed event less people were interested?

I think it was an ok way of doing it, but i can't help but feel that people only gave you their vote if they beat you or drew. I tried to make all of my games as fun as possible for my opponents, but only the people who beat me voted. Granted the two i won were odd match ups so i can see why they didn't enjoy it (to be honest i didn't enjoy them all that much either).

Its not bad, just promotes a different way of playing, which is fine by me.

I'm of mind Lords of war really have no place fighting non lords lists, but hey good on you for almost eeking out an early win. Eldar player was a bit cheesy IMO. Your list is a great one, full of flavor and has a take all comers type attitude I enjoy playing and playing against. Keep up the good work and entertaining reads.

I don't mind facing lords of war with my renegades, normally i can do a little bit of damage to them. Its odd i much prefer to face either a single LOW or a whole knight army, if there are two or 3 i struggle as i'm not 100% sure what to do.

Wow, I know that I get a lot of flak for how much I like IKnights but that is one messed up list, especially to take to a tournament that seemed so casual. Plus, I'm pretty sure he isn't unbound. The Lynx would be his CAD's LoW slot and I'm pretty sure, correct me if I'm wrong, that the Eldar codex has a formation that is just one Wraithknight. One CAD plus two formations. I don't know if I've ever fielded a list that would have good odds going straight up against that.

Given that situation, you did a wonderful job playing him and came close to winning it, probably closer than your opponent was comfortable with.

I don't know of any eldar formations consisting of only a single wraithknight, but i have been out of the loop concerning eldar recently so it could have got past me.

And thanks. I'm not sure what i would have needed to have taken to take down such a list, but it will definitely give me something to think about. At least with knights you can glance them to death, gargantuan creatures... now they are tricky.

If you take the Warhost formation, one of the optional extra picks is a single Wraithknight or single Avatar or single Pheonix Lord, so in a Warhost formation you could potentially take one of the Core formations and then 12 Wraithknights.

However the only formation with Wraithknights in costs about 1500 base (once you include transports), because it includes a Spirit Seer, 3 units of Wraithguard, Wraithlord & a single Wraithknight.

You can grenade in close combat MC's and GC's right? That's the only way I would imagine it working in a human based list like heretics or guard. Swarm with grenades. Typical guard, human waves *thumbs up*

Well done that was a brutal scoring game on both sides. It may have helped to ignore the wraiths earlier and target bikes with battle cannons etc with the plan of dropping the lynx in combat. Ifyou had been able to drop the number of units he had it would have made his scoring harder.

3 lords of war, wow what broken shit, it's a shame people feel they need to bring such incredibly unbalanced lists to a tournament. I'm surprised unbound was even allowed. Seems like you did the best you could against that sort of list. Always good to see renegades getting some action.